Mateo Ybarra’s entertainingly odd little documentary Over Our Hills (aka Jeunes Sauvages, or Sur nos Monts) is an insider’s view of Switzerland’s compulsory military service.
There is little military orthodoxy in this short (less than an hour) compilation of #social media# and mobile phone footage shot by bored young conscripts undergoing compulsory training.
1499
The Swiss last fought a #war with the French in 1499 when the country gained independence. Napoleonic forces overran the Swiss Confederation in 1798, and it was not until the early 1920s that Swiss #neutrality was formally declared. None of that detracts from the fact that this mountainous and proud country has avoided involvement in Europe’s wars for half a millennia.
It would be demeaning to say that the Swiss have played at soldiers all that time, although viewers of Ybarra’s irreverent film could be forgiving for thinking so. The Swiss concept of military service is that every able-bodied adult male must serve a compulsory period of military service. (Women may volunteer). There is a minimum period of four months of service, with annual training periods of three weeks or longer service and shorter annual musters. Demobbed soldiers remain on the active reserve list until their 30s or 40s and must keep their army assault rifle under lock and key at home in case of an urgent call-up.
Little discipline
Over Our Hills skirts over these facts, preferring to present Swiss conscription as a series of farcical skits shot on shaky video or phone. Swiss defence – and deterrence – is left to testosterone-driven 19-year-olds under the (barely seen) guidance of older career NCOs and officers. Theirs is a world of pillow fights, rough and tumble war games, morale-building exercises and – in one nocturnal sequence – masturbation using a FASS 90 assault rifle. Young conscripts engage over social media platforms, including #Periscope, #YouTube and #Instagram, with similar others (young women included). There seems to be little military discipline here.
The Swiss last fought a war with the French in 1499 when the country gained independence.
Ybarro presents little context about Switzerland’s social and economic reality (beyond occasional references to the different language and ethnic groups that make up this multi-lingual territory). There is no attempt made to consider how relevant Swiss military spending and training is or to look at the more likely reasons that the Swiss have been able to maintain neutrality – Swiss banking laws, affording protection to the illicit funds of every tin-pot dictator ever known, or the geography that makes the country what the Germans once called ‘Die Festung’ – the Fortress.
With little narrative structure and no cinematic quality, Ybarro’s film is at best a spin-off of something with a little more depth – his 2021 first feature LUX, directed with Raphaël Dubach, which premiered at the Solothurn Film Festival in January, and at worst a lengthy dive into the inanities of the internet that usually take up no more than a few seconds of our attention.
‘Over Our Hills’ screens in competition as part of Ji.hlava IDFF Opus Bonum competition
